


Kill The Lights

by meanderingmirth



Series: Five Days of Dark Concepts [4]
Category: VIXX
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 21:10:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5179772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meanderingmirth/pseuds/meanderingmirth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For as much as they needed his help, they certainly don’t treat him very well, Jaehwan thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kill The Lights

**Author's Note:**

> Day 4 of the Dark Concept Theme!
> 
> Vaguely inspired by the 2006 film “Inside Man”.
> 
> Because of time zone differences Chained Up is already out even though I’m only on Day 4, and it’s Leo’s birthday! Everything is so exciting~ (人 •͈ᴗ•͈)♡
> 
> Happy Leo Day, and enjoy!

For as much as they needed his help, they certainly don’t treat him very well, Jaehwan thinks.

It was another rainy Friday evening, which meant that nobody would want to go barhopping, which in turn would mean that they’d all start drinking at the warehouse, which would then mean Jaehwan would have to suffer under the barrage of steadily growing noise and increasingly rowdy drinking games as he tapped away at his laptop in the corner of the room. He hated the rain.

A beer can flew through the air, smashed into the ground a good foot or two away from the trash bin, and the remainder of the liquor bubbled out of the open can, frothing at the abuse it had just endured. The men sitting at the large table laughed, faces ruddy and already well on their way to being drunk.

“Oi! Nose!”

Jaehwan’s eyebrow twitched at the nickname, but he chose to ignore it.

That was the wrong thing to do, because a second later the next beer can that flew his way nearly slammed into his head.

More laughter erupted from the table and Jaehwan slammed his laptop shut, glaring at the lot of them.

“What?” he demanded, trying to interject some anger into his voice. Mostly he just sounded wary.

“Pick up the trash,” the bearded man called. Jaehwan raised an eyebrow.

“I ain’t your maid.”

“ ‘dun care if you’re a maid or a worm. You do what I tell you to do.”

Jaehwan scoffed and looked away. It was no use picking a fight with them; they were drunk and wouldn’t listen to reason. The unit was also a ragtag group of strong men with assets, whom Jaehwan had christened each of them with their own nicknames (Beard, Bucktooth, Ink, Chins, and Tobacco Teeth). While their intoxication made them dumb, it also made them rash, and Jaehwan really wasn’t interested in seeing what kind of crap they could get up to tonight.

He left the laptop on the desk, crossed the room in a few strides, and bent to pick up the beer can with a winkle of his nose. Faster than he could react, Ink leaned over a slapped a heavily tattooed hand right onto his ass, hooting. Jaehwan jumped, his rear stinging and his temper rising. He didn’t stop to think about the consequences before he spun around, grabbed Ink by the side of the head, and smashed the beer can flat into his face.

The satisfying crunch of crushing aluminum was only beaten by the sight of Ink falling face first into his takeout food, knocked out cold.

Serves you right, Jaehwan thought furiously, before the rest of them were on him.

Whereas the rest of the unit had been hired for their skills in weaponry, physical combat and stealth, Jaehwan had next to none of those talents. Instead, his expertise lay in his brain and his ability to hack and code, which, in the some cases, wasn’t the most helpful skill to have when some burly guy had his head shoved into a headlock whilst throwing him around. He twisted wildly, long limbs thrashing like a fish out of water. He spluttered as he got hit in the ribs and listened to the others grunt under the strain of holding him down (Jaehwan might not have impressive muscles, but he was taller than all of them), viciously wounding them with petty strikes.

The door downstairs opened and slammed, and everybody froze.

Boots that sounded clunky on everyone else but somehow managed to silence themselves on a certain wearer trekked up the metal stairs, each step precise and evenly paced.

Bucktooth release him from the headlock a second too late, and just as Jaehwan fell to the floor with a yelp, Taekwoon entered the scene.

He was the only one that Jaehwan didn’t have a nickname for; Taekwoon was always Taekwoon, the leader of their unit, unshakeable and coolly collected, his dark eyes sweeping over the scene with that uncanny, all-knowing look that made the overblown male egos all around the room deflate simultaneously.

“Boss,” Beard coughed, trying and failing to appear sober. Taekwoon’s eyes slid past him as he looked down at Jaehwan. Jaehwan pushed himself upright and fought not to flush.

He nodded at Taekwoon, spun around on his heel to retrieve his laptop, and wordlessly exited the room, footsteps considerably noisier than Taekwoon’s careful steps.

The silence behind him was deafening. Taekwoon, with the sharp jut of his chin and the arresting look in his eyes, had a rare gift of commanding silence without needing to raise his voice.

He also had the rare gift of making Jaehwan think highly inappropriate things about Taekwoon’s solid thighs and lean figure, but that kind of thoughts only crop up in the late nights or early mornings, when he’s alone and his skin is flushed and his heart is racing and everything is completely and utterly out of control.

+

He was blackmailed into joining their unit, but Jaehwan hadn’t been much of a holy saint before either. It started out simply enough; his main work consisted of hacking into educational institutions and leaking examination content to those who could afford it, which he was careful about. He never gave away all the answers, no matter how hard desperate parents begged, bribed, and threatened him. He switched between various schools. Then he started hacking into traffic systems to create getaway routes for shady people that needed them and made a pretty good killing off that. His downfall was when he began poking around security systems, because that was when Taekwoon caught up and cornered him.

“I believe you’ll find much greater and far more riveting challenges than helping kids cheat and changing colours on traffic lights, Lee,” Taekwoon had told him, face an unreadable mask as he sat in the seat across from Jaehwan’s in the hotel’s tranquil dining area. The bit of tomato soup that had been pooling in his spoon trailed off the edges of the stainless steel as Jaehwan sat with his mouth slightly open, staring in astonishment at the gall and sheer commanding power of man in front of him. He did not lose in battles of intelligence and strategic planning very often.

“Or I can turn this collection of evidence over to someone who might have an interest in taking legal action against you...” Taekwoon mused, eyes glinting, and Jaehwan snapped his mouth shut.

“Damn it,” he breathed, setting his spoon back into the blood-red soup. Taekwoon smiled at him then, a calm little smile Jaehwan imagined a cat might sport when its got its prey cornered, and dipped his own spoon into the tar-like substance of his own mystery soup.

+

Monday morning: most of the men were still asleep at the hour Jaehwan crawled out of his bed, body sore and achey. He could tell from the mess in the kitchen and the heavy scent of garlic that still lingered in the air that Tobacco Teeth was up and about, probably off somewhere doing whatever personal hired killers liked to do in their spare time. How he could eat so much garlic  _and_  chew so much tobacco and still stand his own breath was something nobody in the warehouse could understand.

Taekwoon was awake too, sitting in the sagging couch Beard and Ink had dragged in when they first set up their headquarters in the rented warehouse. Blueprints covered the chipped coffee table and a silver permanent marker twirled in between Taekwoon’s long fingers as their leader’s eyes roved over the skeletons of the private agencies they were preparing to break into. He looked deceivingly normal whenever they had down time; he cooked, hummed while cleaning, and wandered around the compound with headphones plugged into his ears and blasted tinny music from his mp3 when he was working out. Jaehwan had to admit that rose pasta of his was pretty darn delicious; he knew how to cook, but had never spent time in perfecting the craft. Also, it seemed strangely gratifying to eat something someone else had prepared for him without any reservations.

He sniffed the coffee sitting in the pot, wrinkled his nose, and went for a glass of water instead. There was bread left in the breadbox and salami in the fridge, so Jaehwan slapped a sandwich together for breakfast and was about to tuck in when Taekwoon spoke up.

“Can you take a look at this for me?”

Jaehwan paused at the soft question directed his way, but he stood up and walked over to where Taekwoon sat over the blueprints anyway, a slight crease in between his eyebrows.

“What is it?”

Taekwoon tapped the map with the end of his marker. “This is the overview of the first building we are going to break into. The information is stored in the secured vault on the third floor. We’ll go in through the top floor, but that’s going to be a one-way trip. We need another way out.”

Jaehwan smacked his lips thoughtfully and dared to take a seat next to Taekwoon on the couch. He set his plate aside, lifted the blueprints, and scanned. Silvery arrows, lines, and notes etched in Taekwoon’s loopy handwriting dotted the matte paper, highlighting his thoughts and plans. Jaehwan’s eyes swept over them, taking the information in at inhumane speeds.

“All the doors are armed with alarms?”

“Mhm.”

“No guards though.”

“They won’t come unless there’s a security breach, and there’s a unit on the top floor and in the basement.”

“So you can’t go back up through the top because they’ll be coming down to get you,” Jaehwan hummed thoughtfully. He traced his fingers across hallways, doors, and stairwells. Scenarios slipped in and out of his mind, constructing themselves and tearing down as quickly as they were built. Factors added themselves into the creation like magnetic blocks— timing, guards, locations, positions.

Taekwoon was watching him think, and Jaehwan could feel it. It was the same way the leader had watched him re-configure their security alarms, the codes on their laptop, and when Jaehwan was doing mundane things like playing chess on his tablet, eating, or tapping into some of his old connections for easy-cash jobs in between the work he does for the unit.

A plan clicked into place in his mind, and Jaehwan smiled.

“How do you feel about leaving through the front door, Boss?” he asked mischievously, and thrived in the look the surprised look that settled on Taekwoon’s face.

He loved it when he caught Taekwoon’s attention.

+

“This is bullshit,” Chins groused for the fifth time that night, and Jaehwan was seriously considering shoving the man’s ass out of the van at this point. He was fairly certain nobody else in the unit would care much either. Chins had a habit of acting like he had a chip on his shoulder and took offence to literally anything and everything that happened.

“Boss, you’re seriously not letting this wanker go along with this plan of his, are you?” Chins continued, leaning forwards in his seat to address Taekwoon, who was tapping away at something on his tablet. Beside him, Bucktooth made a messy lane change on the highway and they all slid a few inches to the right in their seats. Laptops, audio equipment and weapons bumped against each other on the floor of the van. “That little rat’s the only one not going in on this thing. And the plan sounds sketch to me. We can’t  _seriously_  be leaving through the front, where everybody can see us. That’s suicide.”

“We’ve already explained the whole gist of the plan and gone over it several times before we left,” Taekwoon said calmly, fingers never once pausing their motions. Without any weapons to polish and adjust like the rest of his counterparts, Jaehwan zoned out a little as he watched Taekwoon type, slumped in his seat as he fiddled with the straps on the bulletproof vest he wore under his jacket, which constricted heavily around his chest like a fist.

“Boss, really now—”

“Are you questioning my judgement?” Taekwoon interrupted, finally looking up. He met Chins’ gaze in the rear view mirror, and if the coolness in his soft voice wasn’t enough to drop the temperatures in the van, the cold chips of ice in his eyes was certainly enough to freeze everything over. On Jaehwan’s left, Beard let out a low whistle and shook his head. Chins spluttered out explanations and excuses, but Taekwoon had already moved on without bothering to wait for an answer. Setting his paunchy face into look of intense distaste, Chins settled on glaring at Jaehwan for the rest of the ride.

Their first and easiest stop of their three heists was a corporate building located downtown. The tiny data chip that required seven men to retrieve was waiting for them in the middle of a secure, electronic vault that had the horrible misfortune of meeting Jaehwan. It was a fine brand, ones that Jaehwan had specifically practiced on cracking many times before Taekwoon even sought him out. If it’d been an older model, or one with more manual inputs, they might’ve encountered more problems. But as things stand, the entry plan was of Taekwoon’s own design, the retrieval process was simple, and the escape route was where Jaehwan would come into play.

They stopped the van two blocks away in a darkened alleyway and Jaehwan watched the infiltration team gear up by the pale light of Tobacco Teeth’s cell phone flashlight.

“Listen if Jaehwan tells you anything over the comms,” Taekwoon warned as they began to spill out of the van one by one, bulky with equipment and weapons. “He’s got the bird’s eye view here.”

Grunts of understanding passed around the group, and Jaehwan resolutely ignored the scowls directed his way. Ungrateful squats, he thought to himself as he shoved all the wires into the ports of his laptop and set up his workspace in the middle of the van. He placed the headset on his pointy ears and pushed the in-ear piece his right one, muffling the sound. They did a standard comm check and Jaehwan gave them a thumbs up when everybody’s signal pulsed strongly on the control panel in front of him.

“Bring the van around once we hit the second floor,” Taekwoon called to Jaehwan as he finished tucking the extra ammo into the pockets of his jacket. He had a long leg propped up on the car and the other set on the floor, every bit the image of a professional strike unit member. Tufts of light brown hair peeked out from the sides of the black hat yanked over his head, and the whole dark ensemble seemed to make Taekwoon’s pale skin stand out even more. The leader pressed the mic piece closer against his cheek and nodded to Jaehwan.

“We’re counting on you,” he said, and Jaehwan barely managed to suppress a shiver at the weight of authority in Taekwoon’s voice.

“I’ll see you guys at the front in half an hour,” Jaehwan replied with a surprisingly steady voice, and Taekwoon smirked faintly before stepping off the van. The door slammed shut behind him, and then the little red trackers began moving across the map on one of the screens mounted in his workstation. Jaehwan spent the time waiting for them to break in organizing his screens, programs already running and waiting for him to input instructions as he listened to the dull, distasteful small talk the unit mumbled to each other as they began their infiltration.

“Didya see the chick wearing the red the other night?”

“What, at the waterfront bar?”

“You know damn well what bar.”

Hoarse, panting laughter filled the earpiece, and Jaehwan shuddered in disgust.

“8/10, I’d say.”

“No way, legs like that? 9/10, at the very least.”

“If you’re all quite finished,” Taekwoon’s soft voice cut through the nonsense like a breath of fresh air, and Jaehwan relaxed into his seat, tapping his fingertips against the tabletop as he watched the a tree sway in the slight breeze outside.

Grunts, faint sounds of machinery whirring, and then professional silence. Jaehwan watched the map reconfigure itself on the screen as the unit dropped inside. He rested the pads of his fingers onto the keyboard and listened to quiet, controlled breathing and distant sounds of doors opening and closing as everybody snuck in. Approximately fifteen minutes after they entered, Taekwoon’s spoke through the comm set again.

“We’re plugged into the system, Jaehwan.”

He grinned, cracking his knuckles as he watched his program whir to life on the screen.

“I’m on it.”

The one thing Jaehwan always believed in was treating the wall of security coding in most of the alarm systems he broke into like it was something organic. Perhaps he was the deadly pathogen, attempting to work itself into the defensive mechanisms of the bigger body. He was sly and he was strong, and in order to move naturally around the obstacles in his way, Jaehwan had to deal with those blocks like they were alive too.

Two minutes and forty-seven seconds later, the alarm was off and the safe clicked open for easy access.

“Alright,” Beard drawled, presumably the first one to see the safe open. Jaehwan let out a satisfied hum and let his fingers hover again, waiting for Taekwoon’s signal. It came swiftly and softly against his ear.

“Get us out, Jaehwan.”

“10-4,” he said cheerfully over the radio, and unleashed havoc on the building by setting off the alarm from every single entrance that wasn’t the front one.

Their elaborate escape plan banked on some pretty simple factors: Jaehwan luring security out on a wild goose chase all over the building by triggering the alarms for every exit at random increments. In the mass panic, confusion and the quick technological blackout he threw over the whole place, Taekwoon and the unit would slip out of the front, unnoticed.

Jaehwan picked up his laptop, squeezed into the driver’s seat, and wedged the device onto the console between the seats as he buckled himself in, started the car, and reversed out of the spot as quickly as he dared. He pulled out onto the empty street and jetted down the lane, coming to a screeching halt at the roundabout in the front of the building. A stone fountain bubbled in the middle of the island, cheerfully contrasting the sheer amount of noise coming from the interior of the building.

He kept the car in neutral and jiggled his leg up and down as he waited impatiently, watching the red dots move through the building, down the stairs, and burst out of the front doors in the form of men with bulky equipment and their prize.

“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Bucktooth yelled as they piled into the van. Taekwoon had barely slammed the passenger door shut before Jaehwan was turning the steering wheel and launching them out of the roundabout, hitting the streets without a second glance back.

“The chip?” Jaehwan asked as the men in the back grumbled and tried to shove themselves into the tiny, cramped space. Next to him, Taekwoon patted the breast pocket of his jacket.

“One down,” he said, voice laced with satisfaction, and Jaehwan grinned before he accelerated back towards their base.

+ 

Takewoon’s unit always found a reason to celebrate anything with liquor, and apparently a successful heist was no exception, never mind that they had only managed to complete one-third of their mission. It was last week all over again, where Jaehwan bashed Ink’s face in with the can and got into a scuffle with the others. But Taekwoon was present tonight, actually sitting at the kitchen table eating oily takeout rice and indulging in a beer with the rest of them, so Jaehwan supposed things wouldn’t get too out of hand. He made his own food, sat down at the end of the table, and watched the others finish and start up some juvenile video game on Bucktooth’s portable system.

“Not going to join them?” Taekwoon asked him sometime later, when Jaehwan was sketching portions of the building they’d just broken into from memory. He shook his head and glanced at the buffoons yelling and cussing at each other.

“Nah. I messed with the game a while ago and put all the cheats on without telling them.”

Taekwoon snorted, brushing his bangs out of his eyes as he watched.

“They’re a messy bunch,” he said. “Not very put-together, frankly, but I suppose they do the job.”

“And what about me?” Jaehwan asked, twirling his pen in between his fingers. Taekwoon’s eye followed the motion as he contemplated.

“You’re too smart for your own good,” he concluded, amusement laced in his voice when Jaehwan pulled a face.

“You keep telling yourself that you’re the brains behind this operation, Boss,” Jaehwan said, pretending to wave him off. Taekwoon smacked his hand to the side good-naturally and grabbed the can of beer off the table. He ignored Jaehwan’s indignant yell in favour of taking a swig from the bottle, and Jaehwan could physically feel the noise die off in his throat as he watched Taekwoon drink.

“And you keep telling yourself you can measure up to me, Lee,” Taekwoon said, reaching over to grab the remaining plate of greasy spring rolls. “I’ll check in with you guys in the morning.”

“Right,” Jaehwan nodded, cursing the crack in his voice as Taekwoon turned and headed upstairs, drink in hand and food in the other, mind blanking out as his gaze ended up on Taekwoon’s ass and legs. It wasn’t until the shouting from the men in the back grew louder in volume and somebody knocked over a table with a resounding crash that he decided that turning in early might have its merits tonight too.

+

But sleep, in the end, evaded him.

Jaehwan woke up at odd intervals throughout the night, duvet trailing off the bed and onto the dirty ground, a light sheen of sweat making his hair stick to his forehead. His stomach grumbled at him, dissatisfied with the mixture of poor food and alcohol. Jaehwan slid out of bed with a grunt, yanking on pants and a shirt before wandering out, too sleepy to prevent his door from closing with a slam that seemed to echo around the silent warehouse. He didn’t know if the others had fallen asleep or had gone out. Either one was a possibility.

He ducked into one of the workrooms instead, the one he frequented most often because it had the best signal in the whole place. Switching on one of the desk lamps, Jaehwan slumped down onto the cool plastic seat and stared at his own reflection in the chipped monitor sitting on the table. He’d fallen asleep working in here before, face smushed against the tabletop and ripping out snores until Taekwoon came, shook him awake and told him he was drooling.

Jaehwan twitched, rubbing a hand over his face. He needed to stop thinking about Taekwoon, because the man was all he admittedly seemed to have on his mind for the past few weeks. It was getting rather inconvenient, especially when...

Jaehwan glanced down at the front of his pants and frowned. Well, that.

He groaned and shot a wary look at the door. It was only half-closed, but what the hell, it was two in the morning and Jaehwan couldn’t think straight anymore. He tugged the zipper down the front of his pants and slipped his hand in between the fabric of his boxers, exhaling in relief when he closed his fingers around himself and dropped his head back against the seat, letting his eyelids slide shut momentarily. The noise of the ventilation system and the creaks of the building gave way to the pleasure building inside him, the increase of his heart rate and the tension coiling in his lower abdomen. In his mind, Taekwoon was sliding his hand against Jaehwan’s own, Taekwoon’s eyes were hooded as his fingers curled around Jaehwan, and Taekwoon was—

Standing in the doorway and staring at him jack off, apparently.

Jaehwan very nearly screamed, but he slapped a hand over his mouth just in time. His heart pounded out of shock, but the surprise was quickly fading away into disbelief and utter mortification, because just how long had Taekwoon been standing there? Jaehwan flushed while simultaneously feeling like someone had just dumped a bucket of ice cold water on him, and tried to tug the zipper of his pants closed as discreetly as he could.

“Taekwoon,” he choked out, floundering; what could he possibly do right now that wouldn’t end up humiliating himself even further? “I-I—”

Taekwoon straightened up, pushed himself off the doorframe, and walked into the room. He walked until he stood right in front of Jaehwan, head tilted slightly to the side, face a mask of collected calm. He lifted his hand, spun the chair around, and then whacked his knee right against Jaehwan’s in a brisk motion, knocking his legs wide open.

Jaehwan was sure he felt his jaw unhinge itself.

“W-what—” he spluttered, and then gulped down the rest of whatever he wanted to say when Taekwoon slid his knee onto the chair and pushed up against Jaehwan, because one, holy shit, and two,  _holy shit_.

Taekwoon slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans, on thin eyebrow lifted as he looked down at Jaehwan. His expression was still unperturbed, but the blown-out pupils of his eyes gave him away; he looked like he wanted to eat Jaehwan alive. Leaning forwards, Taekwoon stopped when they were only a hair’s breadth away and said very slowly, very deliberately, “Don’t stop on my account, Jaehwan.”

He could pass out over the underlying tone in that voice. Jaehwan made a weak, garbled sound in his throat and curled his shaking fingers back around himself, never taking his eyes off Taekwoon. The corner of Taekwoon’s mouth hitched upwards and his knee pressed closer, adding just enough pressure to make Jaehwan’s mouth go slack. “Keep on going,” Taekwoon added, voice soft. “That’s an order.”

It was only then that Jaehwan came to fully comprehend just how fucked he was.

He twitched in the seat and whined helplessly, jerking himself off to a mixture of the intense look on Taekwoon’s face and the feeling of living in an actual fantasy, because Jaehwan was pretty sure even his wildest dreams couldn’t conjure up something this brazen and shameless.

His hips canted upwards as he neared the tipping point, breathing heavily as he tossed his head back and moaned, a name on the tip of his tongue—

—and Taekwoon’s hand was suddenly around his wrist, yanking Jaehwan’s hand off his cock, and Jaehwan’s eyes flew open as he yelped in confusion. Taekwoon held his hand off to the side even as Jaehwan reflextively tried to twist out of his grasp, his fuzzy mind unthinking, and he whined louder than before, tears pooling in his eyes as he stared pleadingly up at Taekwoon, frustration etched in his features. To Jaehwan’s surprise, Taekwoon looked equally wrecked, a deep red staining his cheeks and his lips bitten raw.

Taekwoon’s other hand came to rest on Jaehwan’s heaving chest, his right knee pinning Jaehwan’s thigh down. Jaehwan struggled against the onslaught of residual pleasure until it died, leaving him teetering in desperation on the edge of a high.

“What are you doing?” he panted, unable to reign in the imploring note in his voice. “Taekwoon, please—”

“Follow me,” Taekwoon whispered, backing up and yanking Jaehwan to his feet. He stumbled, barely able to drag the front of his shirt down to give himself some decency before Taekwoon was leading them out of the workroom, down the hall and up a set of stairs, their footsteps clattering noisily together. Jaehwan’s head spun as Taekwoon shoved open the door of his own room, nudged it shut with his foot once Jaehwan slipped inside, and sent the two of them collapsing onto the ground when he pushed Jaehwan up the wall a little too enthusiastically and tipped them over. Their mouths were pressed together, hands wandering, and Jaehwan’s greatest moment of initiative happened when he grabbed Taekwoon’s belt, dragged him closer, and demanded: “Get your fucking pants off  _now_.”

To his credit, there was zero hesitation on Taekwoon’s part as well.

+

Fucking one’s boss is weird.

They’re careful to conceal what they do in case the other members of the unit caught on, but for a group of killers and thieves their brains were only useful when it came to their jobs. Most of them were out and about in the night doing their own thing anyway, drinking and smoking themselves into stupor and often leaving Jaehwan to deal with ever-changing hacking procedures and the incredibly dull task of monitoring their targeted buildings.

But whenever they had time to themselves, Jaehwan would drop to his knees behind the kitchen counter and suck Taekwoon off in the middle of the afternoon, elsewise Taekwoon would back Jaehwan up onto the bed after dark, a warm palm against his throat and a softer mouth sucking trails of bruises and bites down the pale skin on Jaehwan’s chest. Then they go back to the planning process for the next infiltration, where Taekwoon’s eyes bored into Jaehwan’s as he ran over each step of the strategy while Beard yawned and Tobacco Teeth stirred his coffee.

Sometimes he wondered what would happen once the heist was over, once they got their hands on the various data chips Taekwoon had set his eyes on months back and handed over the big fat deposit of cash he owed each of them for their services. Would they part ways, or stay convenient fucks? It was hard to imagine Taekwoon as the type that would stick around, especially in their line of ‘work’.

But then again, Taekwoon once ruffled Jaehwan’s fluffy hair with a tiny smile lifting the corners of his mouth, staring at Jaehwan like he was some kind of interesting animal.

“Softie,” Taekwoon commented, and then he turned on his heel and left, leaving Jaehwan to stand in the empty room, staring after him. What a weird man.

(But that didn’t stop him from crawling into bed with Taekwoon every other night either, so. He wasn’t in a position to say much.)

+

The second break-in is where everything went downhill. Jaehwan actually goes in with them this time around, but not too far; this office building was a lot less secure than the first one they infiltrated, but they needed to mess with the security footage and Jaehwan needed to access the system from inside. Thus, he sat crouched under the security guard’s desk in a small, empty room beside the lobby and crawled through lines and lines of code, carefully interjecting the virus into the system to create the cover they needed.

But then, roughly 60% into the transfer, the building’s alarm goes off at ear-splitting decibels.

Jaehwan jumps and cracks his head against the underside of the desk. Blinking dots out of his eyes, he barely heard Taekwoon shout for him and the rest of the unit to abort and get out,  _right this fucking second_.

He glanced down at the incomplete transfer, swore loudly, and terminated the process. Jaehwan wiped out the entire system with a few swift keystrokes instead, blinding the building. While subtlety was no longer a viable option, even if security or the cops did manage to restore the video evidence it would take at least a week, if not more. Jaehwan’s seen the kinds of program they use in police headquarters. Thing were slow, and that would hopefully throw officials off for a few weeks.

Their rendezvous point was the first level of the car park. It wasn’t until Jaehwan stuffed himself into the back of the van and nearly got pitched into the console as Taekwoon peeled out of the empty lot that he noticed they were a man short.

“Aren’t we missing somebody?” he asked the van at large, started. Oddly enough, nobody answered him, but a visual sweep immediately told Jaehwan who wasn’t around: Chins. Jaehwan pushed himself back into his seat and reached for the seatbelt; to his surprise, his fingers shook.

It took a moment before Taekwoon spoke up.

“He was hit,” he said quietly, and Jaehwan swallowed the lump in his throat.

“And the chip?”

“Retrieved,” Taekwoon answered shortly, taking a shortcut through a one-way street despite travelling in the wrong direction. Nobody spoke again until they made it back to base.

+

They made him the lookout for the final infiltration. There was no other choice; they were short on manpower and time, which outweighed Jaehwan’s lack of assets when it came to the physical portion of their mission. Jaehwan’s erasure of the security footage and the decoy chip they planted in the safe would’ve brought them a period of relative safety, but not for long. They left a body behind, and sooner or later it would trace back to their work. Jaehwan, like the others, wasn’t exactly keen on hanging around when that connection was made.

But the restlessness, the paranoia, and the pressure wouldn’t release its hold on him, and amidst a fit of wary thoughts, Jaehwan slipped out two nights before their planned night of attack to seek out one of his old contacts for an escape route.

“It’s rare to see you so worked up,” Hongbin commented over a pint of bitter ale. He was an old acquaintance of Jaehwan’s, a trusted one whom he dealt with often in his trade. “Are you sure you’re not in trouble? More than usual, I mean.”

“Don’t be silly,” Jaehwan said, but the grin didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m just covering my bases so I don’t end up in a ditch somewhere with my throat slit in case things go south.”

“Isn’t that everybody’s goal?” Hongbin joked, typing quickly on the small notebook computer that looked terribly out of place in the seedy, smoky bar, but nobody bothered to give them a second glance as the drowned themselves in drinks and sweat. “Anyway, I’ve forwarded the things you need to your account. A plane ticket, safe house location, and a security passcode for the building and the condo, but I’m pretty sure you could hack it yourself if you forget it anyway.”

“Thanks, Bin, you’re the best,” Jaehwan said, reaching over to clap his friend on the back. “C’mere, I’ll buy you another drink.”

“This is gonna cost you more than just a drink, I flew my ass over here to see you,” Hongbin sniffed, but he waved Jaehwan off regardless. “I can take an IOU for now, but only ‘cause it’s you.”

Winking at him, Jaehwan slid out of the booth and squeezed his way through the mass of gyrating bodies towards the bar. The secure backup plan soothed his nerves, but just barely. He had no doubts that each of the unit members, Taekwoon included, would’ve made their own plans after what happened with Chins. The stakes had been upped, and Jaehwan was starting to realize that the event of running into a lot of rude, sudden surprises were a lot higher than he’d originally imagined.

Like seeing Taekwoon’s entire unit huddled up in their own booth by the corner, apparently.

Jaehwan stared, thrown off by the sight of them. He knew they’d go out messing around by themselves before, but he didn’t know they were meeting up like this together. Unease seized him, and Jaehwan snuck over with careful steps, sliding out of sight into the booth next to theirs.

“...was a damn nuisance anyway,” Beard was grumbling through the thick whiskers on his jaw. “Deserved that bullet to the head, he did.”

“That’s not the problem here now,” Ink said sharply. “Point is Jung put Nose into the picture, so now that rat’s going to be lurking around too. The last thing we need is another meddling piece of shit in this.”

“I don’t know what you’re so worried about,” Tobacco Teeth said, and Jaehwan could practically see the flat yellow teeth mashing up the food the man shovelled into his mouth. “He’s useless out there. He’ll probably be next to go.”

“He might be useless but he ain’t brainless,” Beard grunted. “He’s a genius, didn’t you hear? That’s why Jung brought him in in the first place. We don’t need two smartasses on our tails.”

“So what, we off Nose before the last break-in?” Bucktooth asked, and Jaehwan froze.

“No,” Beard muttered slowly. “We’ll leave him for now. He’s not the important one. Besides, if we don’t manage to take those chips from Jung then all this shit would’ve been for nothing.”

A murmur of agreement passed through the men, and Jaehwan slid even further down his seat, hands clenched against the worn fabric. So this was how things were.

“And once we do get the chips, we’ll carry out the end as planned?” Ink asked somewhere above him.

“ ‘Course,” Beard replied, and Jaehwan knew he wouldn’t like what he overheard next. “As far as I’m concerned, Jung is the only one who can fuck us over anyway.”

“No loose ends then?” Bucktooth chortled, and a ripple of laughter passed through.

“No loose ends,” Beard agreed, and no, Jaehwan found that he did not like where this was going at all.

+

It didn’t surprise him when Taekwoon’s expression marred with a combination of anger and skepticism when he pulled the man aside the same night, taking advantage of the other’s drunkenness to pass along the information. But what was surprising was when Taekwoon, crossed his arms, frowned more, and asked, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Why the fuck not?” Jaehwan replied incredulously. “In case you didn’t hear me the first time, the majority of your crew is planning on killing you and taking your haul. That’s some fairly important shit to know, if you ask me.”

Taekwoon waved that off with an air of disinterest. “You could benefit much more from hiding this,” he said calmly. “So why tell me? I’m outnumbered against them. You’re not doing yourself a favour with this.”

“Did you seriously think I would want to work with those goons?” Jaehwan asked, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “They wanted to kill me too. If they were playground bullies I’m pretty sure they’re not the type to just steal your lunch and settle for it, if you catch my drift.”

Taekwoon laughed, the sound high and clear, and it made the corners of his eyes crinkle. He met Jaehwan’s gaze when he calmed afterwards, clearing his throat with a light cough.

“Well, I suppose I’ll have to do something about this then,” Taekwoon hummed, rather nonchalant for a hunted man. Jaehwan had to admire that kind of tenacity. “I’m not really the type to take any kind of bullying sitting down anyway.”

“Me neither,” Jaehwan shrugged. “So here’s my proposal: what are  _we_  going to do about it.”

His heart lurched when Taekwoon’s eyebrows arched and he candidly reached out to stroke the back of Jaehwan’s neck, cool fingers trailing down along his spine, a faint smirk on his face as he contemplated the thought.

“Sounds good to me,” Taekwoon said, and Jaehwan grinned.

+

For as much as they were stronger in every physical aspect, they certainly didn’t fare very well against the combination of Taekwoon’s strategies and his own intelligence, Jaehwan thinks.

The three chips were theirs, the four remaining bodies left behind in the dark recess of the burning building could only ever haunt them from now on, and Jaehwan had never been particularly superstitious. He didn’t think Taekwoon put much stock in ghosts either.

The condo Hongbin set up for him was a nine-hour plane ride away, and it was small but clean and smelled a whole lot better than the warehouse they’d been cooped up in for the past few months. They were too antsy to sleep properly on the flight over, so the minute Jaehwan’s head touched the pillow he could feel sleep overcome him. Taekwoon quickly flopped bonelessly by his side too, an arm thrown across Jaehwan’s waist and his face stuffed into the creases of the sheets he didn’t bother pulling back.

Laying low and waiting for the storm to blow over always had the potential to induce mind-numbing boredom, but Jaehwan was rather glad that Taekwoon not only decided to stay with him, but also revealed the plans he had for the chips to him as well.

“Have you ever heard of the Error Project before?” Taekwoon murmured huskily against the shell of Jaehwan’s ear, large hands pressing Jaehwan down into the bed as he thrusted forwards. Jaehwan arched upwards, chewed his lip, and had to think.

“No,” he admitted, curling his fingers into Taekwoon’s now-black hair and tugged, watching the column of Taekwoon’s throat swallow. “Is it something, ah,  _fuck_ , is it something important?”

“Mhm,” Taekwoon hummed, slowing his movements marginally. “It’s a universal hacking system that’s being developed under wraps right now. The chips we took hold some pretty vital information.”

“Hacking, eh?” Jaehwan chuckled, tracing a finger down Taekwoon’s sternum. “Sounds like something I’d enjoy working with.”

“If we manage to work that system out, it’ll make breaking in and getting out of large corporate or government networks a smoother ride,” Taekwoon said, puncturing his sentences with a sharp jolt of his hips. Jaehwan whined and squirmed, mouth going slack as he gave Taekwoon a mock glare.

“You trying to replace me with a program?”

“Quite the contrary,” Taekwoon said. “I’m going to need you to hang around and help me out.”

Jaehwan pretended to think it over. Then, with an almighty heave, he pushed himself off the bed and flipped them over, hovering above Taekwoon with a winning smile.

“I can live with that,” he said, relishing in the possessive grip on his waist and drowning in the heated gaze of a man far more dangerous than himself.

He can, indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> tomorrow will be the last story! we're almost done, woohoo!
> 
> thank you for reading! (*´∇｀)ノ


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